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Lincoln the Profiler The Student Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication Volume 2 Issue 1 Volume 2, Issue 1 (2016) The Student Article 4 Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication 2017 Lincoln the Profiler: Combining a Poet’s Voice and a Rhetorician’s Argument to Unite a Nation and Strive for Progress Maelee Fleming Western Kentucky University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_researcher Part of the Political History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Fleming, Maelee (2017) "Lincoln the Profiler: Combining a Poet’s Voice and a Rhetorician’s Argument to Unite a Nation and Strive for Progress," The Student Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication: Vol. 2 : Iss. 1 , Article 4. Available at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_researcher/vol2/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in The tudeS nt Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Fleming: Lincoln the Profiler Lincoln the Profiler: Combining a Poet’s Voice and a Rhetorician’s Argument to Unite a Nation and Strive for Progress Maelee Fleming Published by TopSCHOLAR®, 1 The Student Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication, Vol. 2 [], Iss. 1, Art. 4 “Lincoln acquired his power by exacting obedience from words, and this discipline he acquired in only two ways known to man – by reading and writing,” asserts Jacques Barzun in his Lincoln: the Literary Genius.1 While from humble farming beginnings, President Abraham Lincoln cultivated his writing abilities into a tool for satisfying his ambitions, which far exceeded those of his forefathers, and those ambitions would eventually lead him to the White House. Complimentary to his success was Lincoln’s ability to write in a way that catered to the auditory, as well as the logical, senses, thus producing works that left the page and imprinted themselves on his audience’s minds. Though he was president during a particularly tense time in American history, the Civil War era, President Lincoln still wrote his own speeches, and he employed a technique consisting of prewriting, perfectionism, and revision to convey his message, clearly and concisely, to a variety of audiences.2 President Lincoln’s writing may have initially been born of a combination of natural affinity and a desire to move away from his roots, but he developed his skills into a powerful tool for his rise in politics and, eventually, to his election to the office of President of the United States. “Writing was a form of refuge for Lincoln, a form of intellectual retreat” asserts Douglas L. Wilson in his Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words.3 The sanctuary Lincoln found in writing was just one facet of his love of learning overall, something nourished through his love of reading.4 Lincoln’s interest in learning would further enlarge the distance failures.5 In spite of his affinity for learning and writing, Lincoln’s formal education only totaled one year.6 “Lincoln was basically a self-taught 1 Jacques Barzun, Lincoln the Literary Genius (Evanston, Illinois: The Schori Private Press, 1960; Champaign: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2012), 26, https://archive.org/details/lincolnliteraryg00barz. 2 Fred Kaplan, Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 2. 3 Douglas L. Wilson, Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words (New York: Vintage Books, 2006), 7. 4 Ronald C. White, Jr., A. Lincoln (New York: Random House, 2009), 53. 5 White, 22 and 53. 6 Roy P. Basler et al., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 4:62. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_researcher/vol2/iss1/4 2 Fleming: Lincoln the Profiler man,” asserts James M. McPherson, in his “How Lincoln won the War with Metaphors.”7 His drive to further his education is a further indication of his need to separate himself from his father’s failures and become a success in his own right. Though Lincoln’s literary accomplishments are immense, crafting one of the greatest speeches in American history in The Gettysburg Address, he was embarrassed about his lack of formal education.8 That he is ashamed of both his lack of education and his humble beginnings, is best demonstrated in his autobiographies, as Ronald C. White, Jr. describes, in his A. Lincoln, “[Lincoln was] remarkably brief about certain periods of his life, … [his] spare account tells us as much as he wanted the public to know.”9 Lincoln even goes so far to distance himself from his past by writing his second autobiography, published in 1860, in the third person, referring to himself as “A” or “Mr. L.”10 The short length of this autobiography and lack of detail concerning his early years suggests that once beginning his political life, Lincoln was determined to leave his humble roots behind and focus on his political aspirations. Lincoln viewed writing as the key to progress, and thus he honed his natural talent for writing, combined with his self-taught literary knowledge, to develop a pathway, not only out of his familial background, but to his position as President of the United States.11 “So memory will hallow all/ We’ve known, but know no more,” wrote Lincoln in his “My Childhood-Home I See Again.”12 Though Lincoln’s speeches demonstrate his true writing genius, Lincoln did attempt to expand his writing ability from speeches to poetry, having been a fan of poetry since his adolescence.13 Lincoln’s poems however, while possessing potential, were tempered by both political overtones and social constraints of the 7 James M. McPherson, “How Lincoln Won the War with Metaphors,” in Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, ed. James M. McPherson (New York: 1990), 94. 8 Harold Holzer, Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech that Made Abraham Lincoln President (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 21. 9 White, 7-8. 10 Basler et al., 4:60-67. 11 D. Wilson, 40. 12 Basler et al., 1: 368 13 Kaplan, 29. Published by TopSCHOLAR®, 3 The Student Researcher: A Phi Alpha Theta Publication, Vol. 2 [], Iss. 1, Art. 4 time period that did not allow him to fully develop this skill into an art form, and as Roy P. Basler states in his “Lincoln’s Development as a Writer,” “in Lincoln we have a literary artist, constrained by social and economic circumstances, … yet motivated by a love of words … and … [a] craving … to create beauty.”14 Therefore, while his attempts at poetry were ill fated, Lincoln’s practice with writing poetry later proved beneficial to his skill as a speech writer, as he incorporated the lyrical quality of poetry into his speeches. Edmund Wilson describes, in his Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War, the benefit of Lincoln’s early work with poetry as granting Lincoln the ability to “always be able to summon an art of incantation with words.”15 Combined with his study of poetry, Lincoln also wrote from a perspective of hearing, rather than simply reading, his words. Lincoln grew up reading aloud, and he continued this practice into adulthood.16 Thus, he was acutely aware of the necessary cadence of spoken word that was required to make hearing language an enjoyable experience, and he wrote with this knowledge in mind. These traits ability to, as Douglas L. Wilson writes, “[say] ordinary things in an extraordinary and memorable way.”17 Lincoln employed both his experience with the rhythm, timing, and literary devices associated with poetry and his knowledge of how appropriately to orate in his writing, which gave his speeches a quality that was pleasing to the mind and the ears, a quality many other writers lacked. Lincoln knew how to write in a way that would not only convey his message accurately and completely but also in a way that would ensure his audience would enjoy the experience. As McPherson asserts, “here lies one of the secrets of Lincoln’s success as a communicator: his skill in the use of figurative language.”18 Lincoln employed this tactic in 14 Roy P. Basler, “Lincoln’s Development as a Writer,” in Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, ed. Roy P. Basler (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1946), 11-12. 15 Edmund Wilson, Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), 122. 16 D. Wilson, 90. 17 D. Wilson, 11. 18 McPherson, 95. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_researcher/vol2/iss1/4 4 Fleming: Lincoln the Profiler his “House Divided” speech, writing “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided.”19 Lincoln’s stress on certain words, demonstrated through his use of italics in his written copy, showcased the intensification he would employ when giving his speech aloud. Lincoln presented stress in his writing, anticipating the stress that would be placed on those words when read or heard, to ensure his meaning was completely absorbed by his audience, as his audience would hear the infliction on words and instinctually pay closer attention. “Lincoln’s greatest speeches have the kind of resonance that we associate with poetry, a reverberation through multiple levels of experience, both public and private,” proclaims James Hurt in his “All the Living and the Dead: Lincoln’s Imagery.”20 Thus, when Lincoln wrote he wrote in such a way to provide his audience with an experience that audience would not only process his message but also remember what he had said.
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